"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Friday, August 26, 2016

In A Race Between Two Really Awful Senate Candidates, The Only Good Move Is To Refuse To Participate

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Chuck Schumer has managed-- along with Montana sock puppet Jon Tester-- to set up a series of lesser-of-two-evils contests that will determine which party controls Congress. Ted Strickland and Katie McGinty are obviously unqualified to be U.S. senators and nothing would ever get me to vote for either. But then look at the garbage each one is running against: respectively Rob Portman and Pat Toomey. Portman is worse than Strickland and Toomey is worse than McGinty, but that doesn't make either Strickland or McGinty any more fit for office. Schumer planted a series of discredited lies about Alan Grayson to guarantee his (and Wall Street's and Saudi Arabia's) choice for the Florida Democratic nomination, "ex"-Republican Patrick Murphy. A Murphy/Rubio race would surely force Florida voters to pick the lesser evil but this is a far tougher race than the ones in Ohio and Pennsylvania which it isn't clear which one is the lesser evil. Again, I'd never vote for either, but who do you even root for in a contest like this? Mothra? Godzilla?Worse yet, in California, where the jungle primary has puked up two crappy Democrats to run against each other in a blue state saddled with a corrupt party establishment, conservative Blue Dog-- and dumbbell-- Loretta Sanchez faces off against corporate nothing and woman of mystery, Kamala Harris, neither of which is worth a vote. And what's a Republican to do. Well, the editors of the Redding Record Searchlight are Republicans and they're backing the moron Blue Dog. "For Republicans who can stomach the idea of voting for the more centrist of two Democrats," they wrote this week, "Sanchez is a clear choice."

Perhaps foremost on her list of qualifications for that role are endorsements — those that have gone to her opponent, California Attorney General Kamala Harris.Harris has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, for example, which cited its discomfort with statements Sanchez has made indicating that the discussion of water solutions for California must start with everything on the table-- including (gasp) the Endangered Species Act. Sanchez paints that as a pragmatic way to begin negotiating, and insists it's not fair to say she wants to alter the ESA, but her willingness even to talk about it causes environmentalists to shudder.
Folks who feel the current administration has America on the wrong track may also take note of Harris's endorsement by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Their interference in a two-Democrat race riled Sanchez, but it may prompt some Republicans to give her a second glance.On the campaign trail, Sanchez emphasizes her experience with national security. She has served on the House Armed Services Committee throughout her time in Congress, where she says she "works on avoiding the conflicts of the future. If I'm doing my job right, you're never going to hear the names of the countries" where problems might break out.Sanchez, a member of the House Blue Dog Coalition, spoke most carefully answering Second Amendment questions."The Second Amendment is the Second Amendment," she said. "If you're one of the people who wants to melt down all guns... there's a process to change the Constitution. I'm going to agree with the fact that people have a right to have a gun."Still, she indicated that she favors background check restrictions and her campaign website lambastes Senate Republicans for blocking "responsible action on gun violence."...In a two-way race, voters who look closely may my find Sanchez too liberal, but ultimately less problematic than Harris.

No, the Democrats aren't as bad as this GOP Senate candidate in Louisiana, but that's too low a bar for me. I'm done with lesser-of-two evils voting. In most of these races, the smart move is to not vote and tell the DSCC to eat their own shit because you're not that hungry.

So, there is no reason, no possible scenario, that would make you vote to elect any of these Democrats, even if that means that Mitch McConnell remains leader and the Senate stays Republican? Nothing?

I wonder what it's like to live in a world that my personal principles can outweigh the moral and physical damage a Republican-led Congress would continue to inflict on my fellow Americans. I hope I never learn how that feels.

LG, how certain are you that as bad as McConnell is, he's any worse than Schumer?

But I'm looking at my decision to not vote for the lesser of two evils from a different perspective. If we keep voting for their shit candidates they'll just keep serving them up and even making them worse and worse. I'm not really advocating that anyone else do what I do in that sense. It's something I came to after many, many decades as a foolishly and robotically loyal Democrat.

Not voting for either won't give the powers that be any message at all. They could not care less.

It would be great if people began to mobilize again, like during the Vietnam War. (The draft sure worked wonders!) Marches on Washington need to come back into style. Like a million young people marching against student debt, a million people marching in support of a public health plan option, or a million Bernie- ites marching against Wall Street corruption. These would be messages hard to miss. Not enough people are riled up enough these days to go march. Easier to sit and type your angst into your cell phone.

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